Well, yes and no. I think there is a large difference between buying cars
for resale and buying a car to use for a protracted period of time.
Considering that a low mileage V8 now seems to be any V8 with fewer than
100,000 miles, and considering the number of regular, maintenance type items
that are pretty much shot at that time of use and age, buying ANY V8 is a
"fixer upper" proposition.
For my part, in my search for another V8, I am ruling out anything except a
'93 or '94. I might look at an unusual '92, but probably not, as the car
was really exceptionally well "sorted" by model year '93, and in this
purchase I will play, or attempt to play, all of the odds.
I will rule out any car that has had collision repair, and I will work very
hard at examining the car from the standpoint of physical, cosmetic
condition. I would prefer to not have to do body work on the car, as that
gets very expensive. Since I will be starting with a car of low value to
begin with, I will want to confine my financial commitment to making the car
mechanically as good as is reasonable to do, so that I will get the most use
out of it as possible. This is not a restoration of a rare car: just a
nice one.
There is a difference between "expensive" repairs and mere maintenance
items. At 100,000 miles or so, all things are potentially negative on these
cars. It is possible to buy a "nice" example and find the transmission
going sour quickly; it is possible to buy one with 80,000 miles that has
never had a timing belt, and immediately after plunking down the money, the
tensioner fails and the pristine example now has 32 bent valves. Unless the
documentation is present to support the condition of the car with proof of
routine maintenance, buying low, hauling the example into the shop for
examination and mechanical restoration before driving seems the safest bet
to me.
Roger
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 17:17:25 EST
From: NicolCS at aol.com
Subject: [V8] Purchasing a V8
To: v8 at audifans.com
Message-ID: <2c4.57f074.30d496f5 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
I've been thinking about what was espressed in the "snip" below. I don't
agree that it makes sense to purposely purchase a cosmetically good but
otherwise
"fixer-upper" for a rock bottom purchase price based on the notion that ALL
available V8 cars these days will need major work anyway. I have some
experience in purchasing cars - I've purchased over 700 cars (I had a
dealership a
while back). In my experience it makes much more sense to purchase the BEST
car